The Lady in the Lake
by Elliot M. Meredith
Summary: A sanctioned psyker is asked to look into the disappearance of an influential noble's wife. Her investigation draws her ever deep into a sump of lies, intrigue and deceit, until she finds herself in way over her head.


The hive city Carthaginem, one of the main industrial hives on the planet, reached out of an endless expanse of poisonous swamp like the arm of a drowning giant. Several miles it reached upward, where it ended in five spires, five fingers clawing at the stars.

There was the Spire of Refinement, the pinkie of this hand, housing the theatre district, the opera house, and the scholasticae and seminaries for the children of the High Houses. Next came the Spire of Trade, the ring finger, housing the major aeroplane and skyship ports, offices of all the merchant houses, guilds, and the Departmento Munitorum, and endless warehouses, silos, stores and granaries. The middle finger, the tallest, was the Spire of Regency, with its Halls of Debate, the High Court, offices of the different Imperial Adepta, and crowned by the palace of House Brecht. There was the Spire of Worship of the Ecclesiarchy, with all its monasteries, offices of the Sisters of Battle and the Inquisition, and the Grand Cathedral. And finally there was the Spire of Ruin, collapsed centuries ago, that now stood out like a blunt thumb, mostly deserted and overgrown by creepers and even new forests.

Of course, Carmody had never seen Hive Carthaginem from the outside. She only knew the schematic depictions of the city from the ›You Are Here‹ maps at stations and conjunctions.

»This access is barred!« the guardsman barked her when she showed him the letter of recommendation from Chief Magistrate Chandier. Even though she was in uniform he couldn't bring himself to address her by her rank. It was clear he could barely contain himself from spitting out and making the sign of the Aquila at her.

She rubbed her temple with her free hand. They were all on edge. And the headaches of the past days intensified the closer she got to the Spire of Trade.

»I have an appointment with the Lord Secretary himself. He will be waiting for me.«

Her fist was sweaty in its black bat skin glove, clenched tight around the letter. It was the gloves, marked in purple with the damning mark of the Psyker, together with the equally marked tall, stiff collar around her throat that had given her away to the guardsman and evoked his disgust.

She was sanctioned by the Adepta Astra Telepathica, of course. And she knew that theoretically her position in the Imperial Guard and the personal patronage of Commissar Hellgen should keep her safe from planetary dignitaries like Lord Marcian, the city's Secretary of Trade, or his lackeys, but powerful people were like Barrosaurs. Even when at their most peaceful they could easily crush those under them by accident.

»So do others. You will have to take one of the elevators to the main port and then work your way up from there, or you will have to wait.«

She had already been traveling for three hours, all the way from the recruiting barracks in the mid-hive to the top of the »palm« of Carthaginem. But going through the vast aeroport, with its countless security checkpoints, and up through the endless labyrinth of crowded offices all the way to the quarters of the Lord Secretary could take as much as three days, while the direct elevator should have gotten her there within the hour.

She looked around. Several couriers from different merchant houses and guilds were gathered in a nervous huddle to one side of the foyer. All had the fear of the consequences of this delay written across their faces.

»What is the problem, guard?«

The man who wore the gold-brown velvet livery of House Gallotree over his armour scowled at her but stepped aside. She walked past him to the open elevator gate and looked inside.

The cabin was fashioned mainly of exotic dark woods. A nice sand-coloured carpet covered the floor. Several comfortable chairs and a bench allowed passengers to relax during the half hour long ride into or down from the spire. But the image of luxurious comfort was marred by the withered and desiccated body of the ancient lift attendant slumped in the corner he had been chained to.

»He died during the night,« the guard said gruffly. And when she continued to stare at him: »The elevator's machine spirit won't operate without him.«

»How long until the elevator will be operational again?«

»A new attendant is undergoing initiation as we speak.« Again she waited until he added: »The Tech-Priest spoke of six hours or less.«

»I shall wait then,« she sighed. She regarded the dead old man. There had been no chair or bench near his corner. And not only was the chain from his ankle to the cabin's wall not nearly long enough to have allowed him to walk to the nearest chair, the brass tubes implanted in his lower face that had fed him nutrients and air and had removed waste from his body, were so short that even in death it prevented him from sinking all the way to the floor.

»A happy life,« she thought not without envy. »A clear purpose and no distractions.«

Waiting without any occupation for her mind was quite unpleasant. A Black Ship of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica was expected to arrive soon to collect the dark tithe. Together with the clergy of the Adeptus Ministorum as well as the Adeptus Arbites the enforcers of the many major and minor houses of the hive city had been rounding up psykers all year. She wasn't a telepath herself, just a diviner, but the miasma of terror and anguish emitted by thousands of captured and incarcerated psykers seeped past her mental shields and caused a constant migraine.

By the time the tech-priest, a lanky and rubbery-skinned man she happened to know from security chamber discussions, arrived only four and half hours later, more people had joined the crowd waiting for access to the spire. One was a senior accountant from the Departmento Munitorum, carrying a stack of parchments for the Lord Secretary's signature, while the other two were supplicants from other Great Houses of the hive, there to curry favours or perhaps to deliver threats to Lord Marcian.

The priest had brought three neophytes. Two waved incense dispensers and chanted ancient words of appeasement to the machine spirits, while another held the new attendant.

It was a young boy with shock-glazed eyes. The skin of his face and throat, where his nose and jaw had been replaced by brass armatures, were still red and puffy from the fleshcrafting. He limped, the bolt driven through his anklebone that would be connected to the chain obviously still caused him a great deal of physical pain.

Muttering prayers and invocations the priest removed the tubes from the corpse. As the old man finally sank onto the soft carpet, his withered body hunched over in the ancient shape of the questioning sigil. She frowned. This was a troubling omen for an investigator like herself. She muttered her own prayer to the Emperor, asking to be delivered of uncertainty and to be shown the clear path of His will.

The neophytes brought the dazed boy forward. One of them knelt down in reverence and activated the las-cutter to open the last link of the chain. Chanting he took the glowing hot open ring and closed it around the eyebolt sticking from the boy's ankle. The boy, lacking mouth or voice box, could only struggle silently in the firm embrace of the other neophyte as his flesh blistered while the kneeling neophyte used the las-flame to join the sundered metal again in a perfect circle.

Finally the priest, calling on the help of the spirits of the engine, looked the new attendant into eyes welling up with tears of fear. Air whistled rapidly in and out of the hold in the brass mask.

»Ready yourself to become one with the machine,« the priest intoned. »Accept this sacrament, let the One True God fill you with His divine breath, let him feed you and cleanse your flesh, and give your life purpose.«

With that he reattached the tubes to the boy's face. Everyone watched with suspense. If the priest had botched the initiation, the boy could suffocate now, leading to further delays.

The boy blinked and looked from face to face. Finally the tech-priest praised the Machine God and stepped away. Of course, the boy might still starve or die from poisoning later if there was something wrong with the nutrient and waste transport systems, but that would take longer than the trip to the spire and could be dealt with then.

The guardsman slapped the broad blade of his short sword across the boy's rump and snarled.

»Now take these gentlefolk up to the Lord Secretary's chambers, and bring down the gaggle that has gathered up there.«

And so the boy turned to the large brass dial with the ivory handle and cranked it for the first time. He would move that handle up and down a dozen times every day from now on, if the priest had done his job right, for years to come. He would grow old, never moving from his place in the corner, as his life was slowly poured into the machine he operated, sucking him dry, until one day, in many, many decade, perhaps a century from now, his corpse would be carried out and tossed into the incinerator, like his predecessor today. And then he would be replaced by a fresh initiate, while he would perform his last service to the Emperor by adding his body to the fuel that fuelled the very engines he had been a part of for so long.

A clear purpose. No distractions.

She did envy him.

* * *

Although she still had to wait several hours at the top of the elevator before Lord Marcian had time for her, she knew she must have been pushed ahead of many other who had been waiting longer. In the dimly lit lounge, amidst exotic wood panelling and deep leather chairs, she had mostly kept to herself, only accepting a bowl of hot caf when a servant brought offered it to her. Now another servant ushered her past lines of supplicants, though several flights of offices and waiting rooms, and down a very long corridor, until he opened a door for her that opened onto a room unlike any she had seen before.

The room was large, like a cathedral. A few groups of furniture here and there seemed lost under the magnificent dome curving above the room. The metal girders holding the vast sheets of cut, clear crystal were each thicker than a man, but they still seemed too thin to hold up the majesty that offered itself to her.

»You have never seen the sky before, have you?« a soft voice asked her from the side. She had to tear her eyes from the view and turn around to her host.

»Lord Secretary, Lieutenant-Savant Carmody reporting for duty at your request, Sir.«

She bowed deep, straightened, rapped her heels snappily and performed a stiff salute. Lord Marcian was shorter than she had expected. And when he turned towards the light from the sky, his face was more thoughtful.

»Have you, Lieutenant?«

»I have, of sorts, but never like this, m'lord.«

»Oh?«

She couldn't imagine that he really had the time or inclination to listen to her life's story, but a question was a question and he was a Lord.

»I was born in the Mines on Traxus VII and spent my first few years deep underground, m'lord. My gift« - she tugged self-consciously on her gloves - »manifested early and during a year a Black Ship arrived for the tithe.«

The League of Black Ships travelled the systems of the Imperium of Man, collecting psykers from each planet they visited. Thousands of psykers were brought to Terra every day. A few were chosen to become savants in the services of the imperial Adepta, as Astropaths, battle psykers, or to serve in some other fashion. Many more joined the Astronomican to be slowly consumed by that psychic beacon that alone enabled navigation through the Immaterium and thus interstellar travel. Without the Astronomican there would be no Imperium, only isolated systems, each utterly cut off from the rest of humankind. But the vast majority of the tithe was sacrificed, day by day, to the Golden Throne of the God Emperor, feeding his trapped, undying mind with their psychic energy and thus allowing him to guide and protect his countless billions of subjects across the Galaxy.

But even with thousands of Black Ships crossing the Galaxy to collect the tithe, anywhere between a decade and a century could pass on any given planet between visits. That meant that most planets had to deal with their psyker population on their own except during those times when a Black Ship was imminent. Most planetary governors always kept a good reserve of imprisoned psykers ready for the dark tithe, just to be sure. Beyond that some took the imperial credo ›Thou Shalt not Suffer the Mutant to Live‹ to heart and assiduously hunted down and killed all psykers they could find, while others might neither look particularly hard for psykers, and only cull those that made themselves known somehow.

»Who reported you, Lieutenant?«

»My parents, Sir. As far as I remember they were very devout people. I believe they tried to ignore it for a brief while, but once they had to accept the truth that I was touched by the Warp, they brought me to the priest immediately. Had it been any other year, I would have been burned at the stake.«

She would never forget that day, her own screams and her parent's tears as they had handed her over to the priest. She had seen witch burnings before and knew what to expect. But the priest had been informed by his bishop just days before that all witches were to be passed along to the capitol. So she was thrown with a few dozen other psykers into the underground meat train and carried off into the darkness.

»I didn't see any daylight or sky during my time in the governor's cells, as they were underground as well, and completely encased in steel covered in wards and sacred writings. I was transport onto the Black Ship in a similarly windowless cargo container. And then I lived for two years in chains in the lightless holds of the Black Ship, as they were slowly filled from planet after planet.«

Lord Marcian lead her closer to the window. They were three miles above the swamp from which the city rose, and looked down on a sea of ashy brown clouds. Beneath them, but still above the clouds, the skybridges of the aeroport and the slender mooring towers of the skyships poked from the Spire like shattered bone fragments. Carmody could even make out the expanse of the »palm« and the many grand manses, villas, malls, and domed parks and gardens that covered it, although those were already obscured by noxious and certainly both poisonous and corrosive wisps of the ashy clouds.

»And on Terra?«

There was a strange quality in Lord Marcian's voice. He was not looking at her but staring up into the sky and at the...

Carmody gasped. »Are those stars? The bright points in the sky?«

»Yes, Lieutenant. Those are stars. Unfortunately sol is not visible from here, but it is over yonder, somewhere in the middle of that triangle of stars there.« He pointed.

Sol. The birthplace of humankind and the centre of the Imperium of Man. To imagine that there stood the Golden Throne and still it did not outshine all other stars. Indeed, that it could ever be invisible. Carmody made the sign of the Aquila and whispered a brief prayer to the Emperor.

»So you saw the sky on Terra, then?«

Did she detect envy in his voice? She understood that for all his power Lord Marcian probably had never left the planet. Maybe not even Hive Carthaginem.

»I was never on Holy Terra itself, m'lord. Sorting occurred on an Adepta Astra Telepathica Fortress on Luna. I was more than ready to give my mind and life to the Emperor, but I was not granted that honour. Instead I was sent to the Scholastica of the Anguineous Sector. Again, I did not get to see anything outside the hold during the journey, but the building complex of the Scholastica on the planet Bathquol had a courtyard where we would exercise and sometimes were sent for prolonged punishments. There I would on occasion catch glimpses of the sky and of Bathquol's sun.«

Of course, Bathquol was one of the Imperium's infamous death planets, where survival was so hard that the superhuman Astartes, the Emperor's own Space Marines, recruited and trained there. The mountain range surrounding the valley sheltered the Scholastica Psykana somewhat, but the planet's destructive storms still raged constantly against the walls of the complex. Most days they brought thick snowfall, and sometimes torrentuous rain, and occasionally even lethal hailstones. But a handful of times during her decade of training, there had been brief pauses in the otherwise never-ending fury, and Carmody had caught glimpses of a hazy sky and a distant, pale, cold sun.

»But not like here, I take it?«

»No.« Her laugh was short and hard. »Not like here.«

Here the sun was warm. She could feel its radiant heat on her face through the crystal sheet. It was also large and orange, and as it sank ever closer to the Western horizon, it seemed to grow even larger and redder.

»But I think I have taken enough of your Lordship's time. I assume you didn't have me sent for to talk about the sky, m'lord. How can I be of service?«

Lord Marcian looked at her, as if trying to decide something.

»You come highly recommended both by Chandier and by your Commissar, who, I gather, is not a man too generous with praise.«

»Your Lordship is too kind.« She inclined her head, but now that the first wonder at the marvellous view had faded, the migraine was returning with a vengeance and she found herself wishing he would get on with it.

»You feel them, don't you?« He watched her face keenly and she realized that he had seen her discomfort in the way she moved her head and closed her eyes. »The dark tithe?«

»Yes, m'lord. I can use certain mental exercises to minimize their influence on me, but their... suffering... eventually seeps in.«

»It affects me too. And others. Untouched humans. There has been a sharp increase in fights, even riots, all over the hive since we began rounding up the tithe ten months ago. My own staff is getting unruly. We had two dozen suicides this week, people just throwing themselves over the railings of the skybridges or jumping into the incinerators.«

He shook his head. »I know, two dozen people, a hundred, a thousand do not matter in the long run. I just meant to say, I somewhat understand your discomfort.«

He rubbed his brow, then asked: »Will it diminish your usefulness?«

»To an extent. Not nearly as much as Telepaths or Telekines, m'lord. It also depends on the location. Up here, that close to the cells, I am probably only of very limited use, but down in the hive I should still be able to perform satisfactorily.«

He nodded and sighed. »I cannot wait until the Alector has taken all this deviant scum with it and we can return to normal operations.«

He gave her a sharp look. »Does it bother you when I refer to your brothers and sisters like that?«

»I know of our danger, m'lord, and I can understand your resentment.« A single, powerful psyker could under unfortunate circumstances open up a rift to the Immaterium and doom a whole planet to demonic invasion. Indeed Commissar Hellgen had her keep a small but deadly explosive device in the stiff, tall collar that was locked around her throat at all times. If ever she was in danger of losing control and becoming a conduit of ruinous powers, he could quickly and certainly end her life and her threat.

»However,« she continued when Lord Marcian was about to speak again, »as the dark tithe will sustain both the Astronomican and our most revered Emperor Himself, praise be His glory, I sometimes wonder how such disrespect relates to the love and respect we certainly all share for the Emperor.«

»Careful, Lieutenant. Such words can easily earn you charges of heresy. There is an Inquisitor expected on the planet any day now.« But Lord Marcian appeared to be more amused than outraged.

»Yes, m'lord. Do you have use for my talent?«

»Possibly. But the task I have in mind for you is more complicated than just to shake a man's hand and tell me his mind or handle some object to let me spy on its history.«

She didn't tell him that it didn't quite work like that, but instead asked: »What is it you want?«

»Have you ever met my wife?«

»No, m'lord. I know that Lady Vianne is of House Corax, of course, but I have never even seen a pict of her, let alone had the honour of meeting the Lady herself.«

»In three days the Alector will enter the orbit and that night Lord Regent Pallidorius of House Brecht will host a ball in honour of Inquisitor Modrak. As the Lord Regent's Secretary of Trade I will be expected to attend together with Lady Vianne.« Carmody nodded. So far Lord Marcian hadn't told her anything she couldn't have guessed. »The other Great Houses will attend, too, of course, including an entourage from House Corax.«

House Corax, the family of Lord Marcian's wife and through their marriage a close ally of his own Lord Marcian's own House Gallotree, was one of if not the most successful trading house. They owned most of the fleet of aeroplanes, ornithopters, skyships of the hive and possibly the planet, as well as monorails, granaries and warehouses. They also employed caravans, and held trade contracts with houses, guilds, and imperial Adepta, and thus controlled a large share of the planet's trade. Lord Marcian was widely held to only have received the position of Secretary of Trade through his marriage.

Not that his own house, House Gallotree, was any less successful or important: As an industrial house, it owned more of the Hives many hundreds of manufactura than any other and was responsible for the production of at least half of the manufactured goods Hive Carthaginem sold to the Imperial Guard and Fleet.

»Lady Vianne's family will expect to see her at the ball. Were I to appear alone, it would cause an incident. Were I unable to show her with twelve hours of that incident, the alliance between Houses Corax and Gallotree might break. There would be blood in the streets. Trade and production would grind to a halt. And all of that under the eyes of the Inquisitor, and all the other Imperial dignitaries present for the Alector.«

There was an uncomfortable pause, until Lieutenant Carmody ventured: »Do I understand his Lordship correctly in that I am expected to find Lady Vianne?«

»I haven't heard from her in ten days. That was when I sent her a courier to inform her about the ball. This was her response.«

Lord Marcian handed Carmody a scroll of thick, creamy parchment. It had been sealed, but the seal had been broken. When Carmody inspected the broken seal instead of reading, Lord Marcian said impatiently: »There was nothing wrong with her seal, I opened it myself. Read.«

»Yes, m'lord.«

Carmody unfurled the scroll. The letter was short and written with a spindly but exquisitely elegant penmanship.

›2nd Phistinsday, Wheeler's Moon, Mourning Willow, Lake Dawn. My Lord and Husband. I have received your invitation and convey my greatest joy and honour. I shall not be remiss in my public duty. You will hear from me within the week to inform you about my arrival in our familial Manse in the Spire of Trade in time to have my rooms prepared. Dutifully your wife and servant forever, Vianne of House Corax.‹

»I take it you are not close, m'lord.«

This time it was the Lord Secretary who uttered a short, harsh laugh.

»Hah. Not close, no.«

»Lake Dawn... I have heard of that place. Isn't that a natural body of water that has formed in the crater of the Spire-«

»...of Ruin. Exactly. It has become fashionable amongst certain Ladies and the younger members of Minor Houses to occupy Manses along the shore of that lake for merrymaking, far from the usual gossip of the court.«

Carmody mentally translated that to mean that Lady Vianne had amused herself with lowborn lovers in that retreat beyond the pale of the hive's usual politics.

»That promised missive a week later...?«

»Never arrived. Two days ago I sent some men to Mourning Willow. They found the Manse boarded up and entirely deserted. No sign whatsoever where she might be.«

»What about her servants?«

»She only had one man, a personal guard who worked for her for years. He appears to be missing too. The rest of the servants were locals she hired whenever she was at the lake. I could send out people to question the folks of Ledgetowne, but what if all they find out is that Vianne left? What if there is no trail? If I had weeks to search for her, but I only have three days, four at most. So, I need...«

»You need a psyker, m'lord. A seeker. Like myself.« Lieutenant Carmody nodded.

»Please understand. I wish my wife every happiness, and I do not begrudge her her distractions. But this is a political marriage. This marriage is what keeps Houses Gallotree and Corax united in the face of all the troubles that beset this hive. If our Houses were to feud, goods would cease to flow, not just from Hive Carthaginem, but from almost all hives on the planet. Without Corax's trade routes, caravans, aeroflot, ironclad skyships, and trade connections and without Gallotree's refineries, manufactora and most important of all, without our indentured labour force, the other Houses and the other hives will choke on their ores and minerals, unable to process them, or would starve without the slates and spirit-parts they need from us to complete the weapons and ship-parts they deliver to Guard and Fleet.

»This alliance is vital to the Emperor's presence in the sector. And yet, today, it hangs in the balance. In fact, it rests in your talented hands.«

Carmody swallowed. What had Hellgen and Chandier gotten her into? She knew that both had on occasion called her their best investigator, but never had the stakes been so high.

»With your permission, m'lord?« She carefully tugged the bat skin glove from her left hand. Lord Marcian nodded and watched with fascination. He would be disappointed. There were no lights, no outward signs of anything supernatural happening.

Carmody closed her pale, naked hand around the parchment. A sense of annoyance seeped out of it, as if the black ink trickled from the page into her heart. Having to leave something pleasant behind, weariness at duty and yet, submission. Acceptance in spite of the resentment. Everything was oddly dulled, but there were two undercurrents, one red with longing, passion even. Lust? And another, fainted, but much darker, the black bile of old hatred.

Carmody let go. She found it hard to look at the expectant Lord Secretary.

»Please, m'lord. Tell me about the children?«

»My children? Two boys. They had been part of the contract of marriage, to secure our lines. The younger one is studying in the seminary of...«

»The other children, m'lord, if you please.«

»Oh.« He rubbed his mouth. »There has always been an understanding between Lady Vianne and myself regarding consorts and concubines. But as part of the contract, a certain discretion was expected, of course. A few years back, there was an unfortunate incident. Bastards. Twins. They...«

He hesitated. Carmody knew that hesitation. It was the pause of a man considering whether she could be lied to. Because of her talent. What they usually didn't consider that her psychic gifts weren't her only talents. She had been fully trained as an investigator of the Officio Prefectus, and could tell lies quite well by natural means.

»They died very young of the crimson flux. Lady Vianne was infected as well, but survived. She is believed by her physicians to not be able to bear any more children because of this.«

Crimson flux occasionally occurred naturally, but it was possible to conjure it by proscribed, even heretical poisons.

»How... convenient,« Carmody said carefully. A clear purpose. No distractions. She pulled her glove back on.

»What of the father?«

»I believe he, uh, disappeared.«

At least he didn't leave lose ends.

»What if I search for your wife and find that something unfortunate has befallen her?«

»As I said, I wish Lady Vianne every happiness. But should she be deceased...«

»Oh, she might also have fallen afoul to intoxicants. Maybe some trusted associate or family member has her holed up in some sanatorium?«

»Bring me either Lady Vianne herself, so she may attend the ball, or clear proof of her fate and whereabouts, so I may present that to the head of House Corax, Lord Domitianus.«

»Yes, m'lord. Do you know of anyone who might now of her current consort? Another lady of the court, who she may have traded gossip with, or maybe a favourite uncle who could be in her confidence?«

Lord Marcian shook his head.

»Lady Vianne has never been very sociable. She loathes balls and other such functions, and prefers novellas to the theatre or pict shows. And since her recovery from the crimson flux she has been even more withdrawn. Aside from her man, I doubt anyone has her confidence.«

»That man, he has a name?«

»His name is Lems. Erik Lems. He is a former enforcer. He was injured during some underhive riot ten years back, and has been in her employ since.«

»What about enemies, m'lord?«

»Enemies of Lady Vianne, or of me?«

»Either. Who might benefit from her disappearance or demise?«

»If a rift developed between Houses Gallotree and Corax, House Bellami would probably benefit the most, in the long run. But the ensuing chaos would harm them as much as anyone at first. As for enemies, of course I have many. There must be hundreds of merchants and traders who feel slighted over some deal or other. Any of them could be acting from blind revenge. And any number of recidivist leaders probably wants to see me eliminated for restless performance in my duties, and indeed, would welcome the civil war we could be threatened with now.«

He was right. As the leader of the hive's trade and a leading member of one of the greatest industrial houses, his enforcers pressured the owners of refineries, smelteries, and manufactura to increase the output and reduce cost all the time. The wealth flowing upwards through the hive and out of this open palm into the Imperial Guard and Fleet was created and paid for in the sweat, blood, and often lives of the billions of proles.

The Lord Secretary didn't know anything else useful to her investigation, so after a few more questions Carmody took her leave.

As she walked out of the great salon, she looked back once more. Lord Marcian seemed impossibly small under the vast crystal windows and the incomprehensible expanse of the darkening sky above. Millions of stars sparkled in that darkness - and yet sol was not among them.

Carmody shook her head and turned towards the door.

The young elevator attendant was still alive, and his skin was still flush and pink and his watery, tearful eyes untouched by jaundice. It seemed like the Tech-Priest had done his job properly, and the boy would live.

For some reason he reminded her of her own first days in the Scholastica Psykiana on Bathqol. Everything had been intimidating, the stern friars, the cruel punishments if she ever lapsed in her discipline. But there she had had the other pupils. Some of them had been informers from the beginning, but amongst the rest she had found companionship and affection for a while. This boy's function was infinitely less challenging and less physically painful than her training had been, but he was even more lonesome, with no companionship except for the cold machine spirit.

On the way down a Confessor of the Ecclesiarchy inspected the boy. He run fat hands of the exposed flesh, probed the armatures, and fingered the livery. This too reminded her of the Scholastica and the friars, of course. So, even though she would have preferred to use the ride's time for meditation and reflection, Carmody engaged the Confessor into some dull theological argument. Dutifully he joined, and the elevator attendant gave her a mute, grateful look.

* * *

Carmody took a train to Dome Saint Bethel, home of the Grand Cathedral of the Ministorum. It was not nearly as great as the one on top of the Spire of Worship, of course, but the Spire was only open to the clergy and special dignitaries. This was the main place of worship for the masses. Millions of proles saved for a lifetime to afford a pilgrimage up the hive to this Cathedral. Most did not have enough throne gelt left when they arrived to feed themselves, let alone return. Indeed, many already arrived half-starved and drunk on faith. An entire quarter of the dome behind the cathedral dealt with the recycling of the millions of corpses when they either died from exhaustion and dehydration, trapped in the immense crowds of worshippers, or when they accepted the Emperor's Peace at the many Euthanasiums after realising they had nowhere else to go.

From the main station at Saint Bethel she took the tunnel train to one of the wealthier hab sectors in the shield wall itself, where she switched to the mag-lev to Ledgetowne.

The mag-lev exited the station smoothly. It rushed into the tunnel through the last hundred meters of the outer wall of the hive, and then shot out into emptiness.

The wagons hung on wrought iron arms from the magnetic rail, and while Carmody knew that they now they dangled two and half miles over the ground, all she could see was the utter darkness of planetary night. And even when morning dawned the darkness was replaced by swirling brown smoke.

Each wagon hung by itself, only connected through chains to the others and the locomotive pulling in front, and each was gimballed to remain horizontal, no matter how steep the rail itself got. Thus she and the other passengers were pulled upwards though the noxious atmosphere around Carthaginem.

As a Lieutenant (and a Lieutenant-Savage at that) of the Commissariat, Carmody wasn't used much luxury. Her job was usually to screen recruits and to travel with the enlisted men to help her Commissar enforce morale. But as she was on retainer for Chief Magistrate Chandier and for Lord Marcian himself, and since she was trying to learn as much as possible about the life and surroundings of Lady Vianne, she had afforded the luxury of the nobles' carriage. And indeed the comforts of the wagon were considerable: Plush seats, satin covered walls, and stewards catering to the passengers' hunger or thirst.

Slowly the brown fog outside her window became less dense. Light flooded into the wagon. Most of the other highborn lordlings and ladies as well as their servants were well used to this journey and took pains to remain bored and disinterested. Only a young girl on her first outing to Lake Dawn hung as fascinated at the window as Carmody herself.

The clouds reached again until just under the tilted plane of the »palm« of Carthaginem's hand. This time Carmody was much closer than she had been on the Spire of Trade, and she saw the many terraces of Manses and crystal domes much better. Ornithopters buzzed between landing platforms like dragonflies, most sporting the fluttering pennants of their houses. Carmody saw a group of nobles on a domed lawn engaged in strange game she didn't know: They wielded wooden mallets and used them to shoot marble balls through small wire gaols.

»Look, mawmaw,« the girl explained when she discovered the same sight. »They're playing pallamaglio!«

The girl's mother shushed her and on they went. Now the rail angled away from the terraces of the »palm« and began to go in steep circles around the massive tower of the Spire of Ruin. From up close the wall was not nearly as smooth as the schematics and the distant view from Lord Marcian's window had suggested.

All manner of houses, towers, balconies, walkways, ladders, smokestacks, gantries, and platforms encrusted the walls. She could see people on those platforms, and watched smaller skyships moor or float away, and ornithopters circling around them like flies around offal. Whole lives must take place in these communities outside the walls. Most of them would not be policed by the enforcers or Adepta, too far removed and too difficult to reach.

Carmody made a mental note to suggest recruiting expeditions into those regions. She watched people hurry along rickety, suspended bridges with no handrails, and jump from platform to ladder to platform. People were tinkering on engines running gantries or powering machinery inside small, cobbled-together manufactura clinging precariously to cracks and ledges of the wall. What skills people might possess there that could be useful for the engineers of Imperial Guard, or for ranger forces.

Indeed, she even passed a community that had taken to artificial wings to jump off piers, swooping and whirling in the updrafts, before landing at their destination.

As they climbed ever higher the population became less and less dense. Most of the spire here seemed abandoned and in ill repaid. Massive cracks revealed deep caverns. At one point water gushed from such a crevice like a river. Carmody wondered why she hadn't seen this waterfall during previous, lower iterations of the mag-lev's spiralling loop around the spire, and concluded some somewhere some community must have built some extrusion that captured the falling water and funnelled it back inside the wall.

As the air cleared more and the last of the ashy brown fog disappeared, more and more creeping vegetation spread across the surface of the abandoned spire. And this zone, too, seemed to have developed its own habitation: Birds, bats, lizards and simians lived amongst the massive roots and vines of the creepers, and Carmody even though she saw some group of fur-wearing savage humans climb through those vertical forests, hunting for prey with spears and slings.

Twice more they passed through layers of clouds. These were white and wet, though, and left iridescent droplets on the windows that sparkled with all the hypnotic colours of the Warp. And then they arrived at Ledgetowne.

The entire hive city had for the most part rather grown. It had never been built according to one plan. Carmody understood that millennia ago it had begun as a city that was mostly spread out along the ground - a ground that back then had still had its own vegetation and fauna, not just a toxic sump. But with the constant demand of the Imperium for more and more industrial goods, and the pressure to deliver them ever faster in greater number, and a corresponding demand for more and more proles to work the manufactura, habitation stacks had been built on top of each other. New machine halls had been constructed atop older ones, in more and more layers. The leadership had built towers to live above the pollution and noise. And thus a scramble for the sky had begun, turning the entire city first into a mount, then a mountain, and finally this grotesque, marvellous mile-high tower.

But as new domes, habstacks, and manufactura had been built over the old ones, and as older, lower structures had been abandoned to darkness, rot, fungi, mutant rats, and worse, supports and ceilings sometimes collapsed. These hivequakes could swallow entire sectors. Usually they were repaired, or at least filled in and build over within days or weeks, but sometimes they damage was do bad, or so many toxins were released, that large areas of the hive had to be abandoned.

Several centuries ago the entire top third of the fifth spire of Carthaginem collapsed in on itself. Much off the rubble slid off and fell the almost three miles to the ground. A heap of shattered ferrocrete and plasteel hundreds of feet high, with chunks the size of small mountains amidst smaller rubble still formed the crown of the spire. In the many years since the fateful hivequake, nature reclaimed much of the wreckage, with forests growing between the rocks, and all manner of wildlife not just spreading but evolving into the new ecological niches that presented themselves.

And in the centre of one large collapsed hab dome, very close to the outside wall of the spire, a lake collected, partly fed by burst pipes still fed through forgotten mains and pumps, but mostly by rain water and condensation. Lake Dawn.

And on the shoulder of the shattered outer shield wall, between the lake and the edge of the very spire itself, Ledgetowne.

A collection of crooked wooden houses with leaning gables and sagging smokestacks. On the lakeside the unpaved ground of the town sloped challengingly to the waters. The shore was cluttered by rotting piers, boat houses, and a fleet of fishing boats, each painted colourfully with protective symbols representing imperial saints, and of course the imperial eagle. On the ledgeside the mag-lev station, hanging from massive girders over the abyss not unlike an inverted church.

The rail itself was the ridge of the nave roof and ended inside an upside down belfry. From there you ascended into the main nave and went out into the aisles. Stairs lead you up towards the crypt - and out onto a platform that jutted out from the ledge that had given Ledgetowne its name.

The platform was part town's green, part marketplace, and part summer fair. Three gnarly trees spread their canopy of dusky leaves over the exit of the station when Carmody emerged back into the light. Vendors of roast squirrel, roast nuts, candied fruits, and all manner of sweetmeats were scattered all over the platform, as were games of skill and games of chance, and even a small pen with dwarf hogs to be petted and ridden by children.

Carmody understood why all these costermongers and other sellers, criers, and hucksters had set up shop here. People didn't come or remain on the platform for them, nor just for the mag-lev, but to stand at the rails all along the edge of the platform and star out into the emptiness.

Few inhabitants of Carthaginem ever saw the sky, or anything beyond the domes of their habstacks or manufactura. And even truly wealthy folks who had access to the city atop the »palm« and who were used to the sky above - smeared in smog as it was down there - or those truly fortunate who lived in the spires and had access to the rare outer windows - ever experienced such a sense of freedom and possibility. It was exhilarating, and at once deeply frightening.

She had ridden trains through the entire night and most of the morning, and it was nearing noon. Carmody stood on the ledge and stared out into the unimaginable nothingness while the shadows shortened. The air was thin, and cold, in spite of the intense rays of the sun when they touched bare skin, but fresh and sweet in a way Carmody had never tasted. Even in the courtyard of the scholastica it had always been laden with grit and dust.

But best of all, out here, the horrible buzz and pressure of the terrified, imprisoned psykers was gone. For the first time in almost a year, Carmody felt no headache, none of the dizziness and distraction she had begun to accept as given.

She smiled. Time to go to work.

The streets of Ledgetowne were narrow and labyrinthine, but the slope helped. Carmody just picked whatever path lead downward, and eventually she found herself on a wooden boardwalk along the shore.

She grabbed a little boy carrying rolled up fishing nets by the ear and asked: »Where do noble folks from downhive get boat rides to their manses, kid?«

The boy who smelled intensely of fish and scorched oil hawked up a gob of phlegm and spat it into the rough boards of the walkway.

»What innit fo me, lady?«

»Won't toss you over the side into the water, for one.«

He gave it some serious thought, then grinned a gap-toothed grin. »Y'awwight, off'cer. Ah'll tell ya.« He nodded across the harbour towards another pier that ended in a painted house on wooden pillars. »At's Tay's pwace. He ownes all'em pwetty boats.«

Indeed several long boats were moored along that particular peer, each beautifully adorned with carved and gilded scrollwork, and fitted with cushion covered seats for highborn passengers as well as spots for servants to stand and luggage to be stowed.

»He's yer man, off'cer. You gunna awwest him?«

»Would I have a reason?«

The boy shrugged. »Ah dunno. My ma say he dun killed his wife, he has.« And after a pause: »Has he?«

»I'll see if I can find out.«

Carmody gave the boy a small coin and went to the painted house. A sign proclaimed it to be Jasper Tay's Lakeside Inn and Water Carriage Service.

She knocked.

A sullen-faced wench opened.

»I want to speak to Jasper Tay.«

The sullen girl sighed. »Want me to fetch him?«

»That would be nice. Or do I have to go looking for him myself?«

»No. I'll go.« She slouched off, leaving the door open. Carmody stepped inside. It was a nice enough parlour, with solid wooden furniture and expensive tapestries on the walls, but hearth fire was not lit, and the scent of lho smoke and sour beer hung in the air.

Carmody tugged off one glove and lightly ran her pale fingers along the tables and backrests of the chairs. There used to be a lot of warmth in this room, chatter, the clinking of glasses, speeches made, the excitement of friends meeting and leaving for adventure and relaxation. But there was something else underneath. A strange hunger, echoing on itself. The desire to be more, to ascend, consume.

When he stumbled in, Tay turned out to be a short man, with narrow shoulders and no chin. His crimson silk shirt and the garish golden velvet jerkin were stained with wine, and his cheeks sagging, shadowed with unshaved bristles.

»Dear ma'am,« Tay forced a smile onto his face and it suited him well. He had a face that seemed more comfortable wearing a smile than a frown. »How can I be of assistance to the honourable Imperial Guard? Are you in need of luxurious lodging? Reliable watercraft? A guide to all the secluded and little known getaway spots along the lake's shore?«

»Are you Jasper Tay?«

He was taken aback by the harshness of her tone, but quickly recovered. »Indeed, I am. Innkeeper, ship-owner, captain, guide. Jasper Tay, the first address for a great time on Lake Dawn.«

»Do you know Lady Vianne of House Corax?«

He swallowed and his smile slipped again before he could hitch it back up to the corners of his mouth. This time it didn't return to his eyes.

»Of course, of course. Lady Vianne, she owns Mourning Willow, a cosy little getaway on the southern shore.«

Carmody took a step closer, which had him squirm uncomfortably. She noticed the alcohol on his breath.

»You are the one who ferries her to her manse and back? Or does she own her own boat?«

»She owns a pleasure boat, ma'am. But she usually leaves that in the boathouse at the manse when she returns to the Spire of Trade. Mostly I take here for those trips.«

»What about the last ten days? Did you take her back to Ledgetowne in that time?«

»No, ma'am.« He clearly reeled from the questions, and finally sat down in one of his expensive chairs. »But when I went by a week ago, they said she wasn't there no more.«

Carmody frowned. »What was your business?«

Tay lowered his gaze. His shoulders twitched and he dragged up a ragged sob.

»I went there looking for my wife. For Myrtie. She...« Suddenly he struggled with tears. »She left me for service with the Lady. Said she would move with her to the Spire of Trade, that she was meant for something higher than me.«

Tay looked up at Carmody. »I know I been a rotten husband. Had congress with servants and whores. Gambled and spent too much money on wines and Amasec. But...« He gestured around as if to call on the furniture and tapestries to come to his aid. »I done well, still, for myself and for her. Never beaten her I have, not once. The business has grown every year. With her help, of course, but I done my part. Never squandered what we couldn't afford. I'm a rich man, and just started with my father's fishing boat, I have, nought more, and built all this for her.«

When it became apparent that he wouldn't stop prattling by himself, Carmody cut into his words. »Where is she now?«

»I just said, with her mistress in the Spire of Trade. Called her a sister of the heart, she did. She was always so proud that they looked like sisters, Myrtie and the lady. Same dark hair, same creamy skin. She would be her lady-in-waiting, she said. Wear fine dresses, and attend to her at all the functions of the spire.«

»Lady Vianne isn't in the Spire of Trade, you fool. Nobody knows where she is. When did you last see her?«

»I don't know. When I fetched that young good-for-nothing I suppose, four weeks ago I'd say.«

»Did the good-for-nothing have a name?«

»Aye.« Tay wiped at his eyes. »Armadeus something. Said he was from an industrial house, but he didn't seem like no member of no house. More like a nameless fortune hunter, if you ask me.«

Carmody went to one of the lead-glass windows and peered outside. Time was a-wasting.

»How long had Armadeus been at the manse?«

»Two months, I would say. Myrtie was the one who attended to the lady, even then. She loved to serve during the revels, to boss the cooks around, and the musicians from town. To hand them their pay at the end, like a proper stewardess of a grand manse. Of course by the time I ferried that rake back, there hadn't been any revels for a while. No cooks or musicians.«

»Do you know why?«

»Not really. That was when Myrtie told me not to come by no more. That she belonged to the lady from now on.«

»What about that last time you saw her? A week ago it was, you said?«

Tay nodded. »That was when she had me chased away.«

»Lady Vianne?«

For a moment Tay was confused, as if he had forgotten what they had been talking about. »No. Myrtie. By that brute.«

»Lady Vianne's guard?«

»That scared beast, yes. Always hovering over them, with that sneer on his face, like he knew something. Like they was better.«

»And Lady Vianne wasn't there?«

Tay looked around, and Carmody realised he was hoping for some drink. When he found none, his eyes returned to Carmody and he shook his head.

»I called for her. Wanted to demand of her to give me my wife back. She can't go around stealing people's wives, can she? She can't do that, no matter how rich she is or who she is married to. I mean, she can have her consorts there, for all I care, and her parties and revels, but that's my Myrtie. I took her in ten years ago, when she had nothing. Nothing, she came with nothing but some rags. I gave her everything, and now I'm not good enough anymore because of that...«

Carmody's voice was sharp, like the crack of a gun. »Tay! Was Lady Vianne there?«

He flinched and in a much more sober voice said: »I don't know, ma'am. Lems, the guard, he said she wasn't there when I called her name. And the manse looked already deserted, indeed. Boarded up. But the boat was stowed away, too, and I didn't take her back to Ledgetowne, that's for sure. Nor did anyone else. I know cos I asked around, I did. Nobody done seen her leave.«

»But Lems and your wife could have sailed her to shore and taken the boat back to Mourning Willow, couldn't they?«

»Why sure, I don't know about Lems, but I do know that the lady handles the boat quite well, and Myrtie is an excellent boater, no problem.« He rubbed his mouth and thought. »And with all the bustle in Ledgetowne, if the lady had worn a traveling cloak, why, chances are, nobody would have noticed her taking the train to the hive, especially had she taken the citizen's carriage, not ridden with the other highborn.«

»How did that scene end?«

»What scene?«

»Between you, Lems, and Myrtie?«

»Oh.« He scratched his thinning hair. »Like I said, the brute chased me away. Threatened to shoot holes into my boat if I didn't stop harassing Myrtie. Harassing. That's what he called it. Talking to my own wife. He waves his stubber around until I turned around and left.«

Carmody touched her own service weapon holstered at her side.

»Take me to Mourning Willow. I want to talk to that guard. And to your wife.«

»Why yes, ma'am.« In his haste to get up Tay almost knocked over the chair. He tried to smooth his stained and crumpled jerkin. »Maybe I should change.«

»You will take me now. You can court your wife on your own time.«

»Yes, ma'am. At once.«

* * *

Sunlight danced on the lazy waves as they played around the tarred posts of the manse's pier. Tay stood at the prow and gently stopped his boat with one leg against the weathered, wooden boards. Carmody stepped past him and walked up towards the grounds.

Mourning Willow was built at the end of a narrow cove. Massive slabs of ferrocrete, probably parts of the ceiling of the former dome, stood on the their sides forming sheer cliffs on three sides, reaching for a hundred feet into the pale blue sky. The buildings of the manse appeared small in their shadow, like a doll's house, but when Carmody walked up the marble steps to the main gate, she felt diminished by the house itself. Clearly this place wanted to be open to the world, with servants bustling about, the smell of food wafting from the kitchen, and gentlefolks strolling across the terrace and the lawn making polite conversation.

But the manse lay in silence. More than that. The trees that had given this place its name clustered at the far side of the cove along the waterline, their drooping branches stirring the oily, shimmering waters. A few simians chittered in the creepers that tried to scale the mossy, sheer cliffs behind the houses.

Just a few streaks of something dark on the whitewashed wall, next to the chained and locked double door. Could be caf, for all she knew. Could be mud. She was reluctant to take off her gloves. The skin under her collar itched. Violence lay in the air.

»The sailboat is gone, ma'am,« Tay shouted from the boathouse. »Hastily, by the looks of it. The rigging boxes are all left open, unused lines strewn about.«

On the veranda between a smaller guest house and the main building stood a white, ornately carved gazebo. On the main platform of the gazebo a brass brazier on three legs. In the brazier ashes.

Carmody plunged her naked hand into the ashes. They were cold. Safe. Cleansed of all psychic traces. There were a few fragments: tin wingtips from a servant's collar, and a small, cheap saint's medallion symbolising loyalty. Carmody couldn't imagine Lady Vianne wearing something so crude. It was a prole girl's love token. But the fire had left nothing for her to pick up.

The whole place was deserted. It wasn't just the dry leaves collecting in the corners of the veranda and around the steps of the gazebo, or the greasy yellow pollen starting to collect on the boards nailed before the windows and doors. There was no life in the cove, except for the trees and the creepers, the simians, the birds, and the crabs on the shore.

Carmody walked about, touching a stone seat, a bird bath, a door handle, a gardener's rake left to rust in a corner. She caught glimpses of revels, fornication on a table. Someone cursing Marcian's name again and again during intercourse. The sweet taste of ice wine on a hot evening. Fragrant lho smoke drifting amongst the willow branches. And tantalisingly amidst all these impressions, a heady, dark scent, of an unfulfillable longing, equal parts desire and rage.

Was this the same lust and hatred that had been imprinted in the letter? Carmody couldn't be sure. If so, something had changed about it. But what?

She was so deep in thought that she didn't immediately become aware of the screams. And when she did, she needed a moment to find their origin. Tay was standing to his hip in the shimmering waters of the lake and stared into the darkness under the pier.

»What is that? Oh, Emperor's name, no. No. What is that? No!«

The body had been weighed down with some of those heavy pallamaglio stone balls, wrapped in a crude sling fashioned of an apron and draped over the body, in the middle of a patch of underwater grass, keeping everything almost invisible.

Decay had begun bloating the belly of the corpse and carrion crabs had had their fill from all the soft parts. Eyes, lips, nose, breasts, and crotch were mostly gone.

»Oh, Throne, what did they do to you? Oh Myrtie, why did you have to leave me? You would have been safe with me. Myrtie!«

Carmody waded into the water. Corpses were of little use to her. Whatever departed at death took all the memories with it. The only thing that remained was the experience of death itself, nothing else. She steeled herself for the experience and touched the cold, soggy flesh.

»Ma'am? Ma'am? Are you okay?«

Carmody had to steady herself against the pier. The migraine was back, worse than before. Pain radiated from a point low on the back of her skull, where the murderer had struck with something hard.

»I need to search the ground, but then I want to talk to the constable.«

She found the mallet inside a tall vase next to the main door, just next to the dark dashes and specks on the white wall. There was more splatter on the wooden head. She Carmody gripped the mallet, she felt the impact running through her arm, just as hard as the regret. But no wavering of will. It had been an efficient, purposeful blow. Hatred of having to do it, but never hesitation in what was unmistakably a duty.

When Carmody helped Tay load the body onto his boat, she showed him the burned medallion.

He claimed he had never seen it before. She didn't challenge the obvious lie. Instead she had him take her to the local law.

* * *

Again and again a fly buzzed against the window in the precinct house, even though the window had been pushed half open. Carmody had expected the constable to be some fat old former guardsman or sergeant of the militia who had some cheated or bought himself into a comfortable retirement position. She was astonished to find instead a gaunt man merely a decade older than her, with a crude prosthetic left arm and leg, and with clear blue eyes that missed little.

»Would you say the body was easy to spot from the beach?«

His name was Brukman, and he had cut right to the heart of the matter.

»You're wondering whether Tay knew where the body would be?«

»Everybody knew that his wife was a wild girl. He might have gotten away with the story she left with Lady Vianne for a while, but the next time the lady had come back to the lake...«

»Is he the jealous type? Violent? He seemed too weepy to me.«

Brukman looked at the buzzing fly. »He sure loved that girl. Not necessarily in a good way.«

»What do you mean?«

Brukman gave Carmody a weary smile. He pulled out a pack of lho sticks.

»Do you mind?«

When she shook her head, he offered the pack to her, but she waved it away. He lit one stick with a match from a box on his desk and puffed on it for several moments while marshalling his thoughts.

»You a married woman, Lieutenant?«

She held up her gloved hands. »I wouldn't get the permission.«

Brukman smiled apologetically and went on. »I am. Neigh on seven years now, ever since the Fleet left my shot up rump with the medicae of the barracks here.«

It was his turn to wave her off when she wanted to say something.

»Never mind that. So, my wife and I, we fight a lot. We argue about expenses, about choices, about friends. At time I catch myself thinking how easy would be to tip her over the ledge.«

He nodded out the window that overlooked the platform above the station, and the sheer drop into the clouds.

»But I love her for who she is, and what she had brought to my life. Purpose. A new duty. Companionship.«

»And Tay?«

»For Jasper Tay that girl was a sign from the saints, if not the Emperor himself. She was his blessing. Not some fisherman's daughter, nor some wench from the inns. He loves to consort with those, yes he does. But Myrtie, she was this magical creature sent by the saints to come out of the lake or something. To mark him as blessed. No wonder she began thinking of herself as someone who belongs into one of the other spires.«

»And so, when she left him, for a highborn lady...«

Brukman nodded and puffed some more on his lho-stick.

»You can see why that question might be weighing on me somewhat.«

Carmody smiled. She had wondered when the constable would return to his question. He did not seem like a man who ever let a question go unanswered.

»I don't know. I spotted her immediately when Tay pointed at her, but she was amidst the lake grass, with crabs and snails all over her, so who knows. But he did not kill her, that much I can tell you.«

Brukman frowned. »I have seen Primeris do spectacular things in battle. Rain lightning on our enemies. Shove them out of the way, slam them into the ground. But this. I'm just a humble constable now, and this is beyond my understanding.«

He made the sign of the Aquila and shook his head.

»I'm telling you. The blow that shattered her skull was struck to defend a ward. There was no jealousy, no possessiveness. Just unshakeable duty.«

Brukman smiled wanly. »You already have someone fingered, so let me hear it. Who did it?«

»I most like Lady Vianne's bodyguard for this. Erik Lems. You know him?«

»Don't know what to tell you. He was always with the lady. But to be honest, if she had switched him out for another hulking chap every now and then, I might not have noticed. But...«

He extinguished his lho-stick thoughtfully.

»That does remind me of something. A while back, a month or so, there was an Arbitrator here. Similar type, that's what makes me think of him. He asked around for someone. Had no name, but a sketch. Not a pict, mind you. Delicately drawn, though. Some thought there was a resemblance to the Lady Vianne. I did see him talk to that guard, that Lems. Not the lady, though.«

Carmody waited, certain there was more.

»The way they talked,« Brukman scratched his chin. »not like men who are meeting for the first time.«

»Lems was an enforcer before he entered the lady's employment. From one of the lower sectors.«

»That Arbitrator, a Protector Rufino, he's from Cracked Dome. I asked about him. It seems he has a reputation for an iron fist.«

»And admirable trait in a Protector, is it not?«

»I guess it is.«

Carmody was already on her way to the door when she noticed the buzzing of the fly was gone. She looked around, and indeed, it seemed the little critter had found the open window and escaped.

She fished the scorched tin pendant from a pocket.

»What can you tell me about this, constable?«

Brukman didn't hesitate.

»Myrtie wore that.«

»Any idea why Jasper Tay might lie about knowing it?«

He chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound.

»I told you about my wife, didn't I?«

»In passing.«

»Me, I was born sectors away. Too far for the Fleet to return to, cripple that I am. The wife is from here. Ledgetowne. She's the reason this is where I ended up in in Carthaginem.«

Carmody nodded patiently.

»I've only been here seven years. Five as the constable. Myrtie arrived before me. Three years or so, ten all told by now, I think.«

Brukman lit another lho-stick.

»The wife, she once made fun of poor Tay. He'd been boasting with his Myrtie, at the gambling tables in the Perched Eagle. That is where the wife works, you see. Talked about how special she was. The wife didn't make fun of him to his face, of course. But at home, that evening, she had her laugh. How that pendant means devotion. That your heart belongs to someone?«

Carmody nodded.

»You see, Myrtie wore that thing already the day she turned up down at the shore. All in rags, no money, no family, no past. Just that pendant. Who does her heart belong to, the wife asked me. Because it isn't poor, proud Jasper Tay.«

* * *

Carmody hired a fisherman to take her back to the manse. The fisherman refused to go ashore, doubly intimidated by the grand name and the sordid murder now attached to the place. But he agreed to trail crab traps in the bay within shouting range until she wanted to go back to town.

She went through every room of the manse, soaking up all the residue left by Lady Vianne and her various guests. Carmody came away with some more understanding of her quarry, and some troubling questions.

Clearly the lady had suffered from a deep depression over the loss of her bastard children, to an extend Carmody could not really understand. Death was a fact of life in Carthaginem, everywhere from the underhive to the crowns of the spires. Anything from political assassination to radiation leaks, from recidivist unrest to hivequakes. Why would a highborn lady mourn the loss of bastards with such monomaniacal endurance?

She had also tried to escape her grief through a fervent hedonism no less uncommon. Carmody had no doubt that the especially rich and mighty of Carthaginem were beholden to vice correspondingly expensive and imposing. But she would have expected a trophy bride like Lady Vianne to be more flighty, more given to the changing fashions of the court. Not so Lady Vianne. Her routine had been to throw one or sometimes more lavish parties. Her guests had apparently always been that particular cross-section of the nobility and the more affluent traders that shared closeness to wealth and power while being themselves utterly insignificant: Youngest sons, forgotten widows, useless sycophants, idle wastrels.

On these revels, she would pick one new paramour. With him (and it was always a he), she would withdraw from all social contact, spend increasingly dark and desperate days of endless debauchery without visitors and next to no staff. Then despair would overtake her and he would slink away, torn between guilt and wounded pride, and she would struggle with thoughts of suicide or murder, until she picked herself up for the next bout of the same.

Carmody sucked in the cold night breeze when she finally left the manse for good. As the deadly still waters glided past the bow of the boat and the reflection of Ledgetowne's lamps danced drunkenly under the lake like the deathlights of drowned souls, Carmody wondered if she was trying to rescue Lady Vianne, or if she was hunting for her.

It was surprisingly easy to find the full name of the last wastrel that had come from Mourning Willow. Carmody had but to drop a few coins and buy a few drinks in the plentiful taverns and public houses of Ledgetowne to accumulate a long list of former paramours of Lady Vianne. Rejected as they all ended, most seemed to reinflate their suffering manliness with alcohol and more than willing tavern wenches.

The last to participate in this ritual had left a considerable bill. That was apparently normal enough, and usually Lady Vianne would pay it when she prepared her next revels. This time she never had done so. Carmody took care of it in return for access to a few items the gentleman had left in the room he had occupied while he had waited for Lady Vianne to maybe miss him and send for him to come back to her.

Dawn was returning to the lake when Carmody returned to the precinct house and used its vox to contact the office of the Lord Secretary. The next mag-lev took her back into the darkness and smoke of the hive. And by the time she got off at Saint Bethel station, next to the Grand Cathedral, a message from the Lord Secretary was waiting for her, telling her where she had to go next.

* * *

Gunmetal Heath were technically three connected domes, and home to several of the hive's greatest arms manufactura. The bolters, stubbers, flamers, and lasguns assembled here were used by the Imperial Guard in wars all over the sector and even beyond. Carthaginem had many hearts, but this one beat in fire and steel, and it pumped the blood of the Empire.

The manufactura were situated at the central intersection of the three domes. Smoke billowed from leaking pipes and filled the air with an ever-present greasy fog. The southern dome also housed two smelteries and the habstacks of the poorest proles - not those who actually worked the manufactora, but those that made a living by cleaning the acid baths and waste channels, or scraped the various mineral deposits from seams and cracks to sell for recycling. The western dome was occupied by the habstacks for the thousands of workers of the manufactura, endless rows of featureless apartment towers, each disappearing in the impenetrable smog under the dome's ceiling. The dimly lit, straight, crisscrossing streets between them were constantly filled with streams of humans, either being washed towards their places in the manufactura, or away for their short off-times, to eat, and sleep, and procreate.

Carmody made her way to the north-eastern dome, shared by the habstacks of the many administrators, cogitator operators, bureaucrats, and managers with the guilds, traders, and industrial houses that owned and ran the arms companies of Gunmetal Heath. After the first mile she got out of the depressing, massive towers and into crooked streets of smaller, gabled houses. Here were shops, smaller offices and counting houses for traders, even some theatres, restaurants, and scattered in between, several narco-parks with their dark-leafed breeds of gengineered nightshade trees and bushes growing around the gothic statues of saints and forgotten generals. The trees were speckled with carmine and saffron trumpet shaped blooms. Citizens walked the paths between them, in couples or alone, and breathed in the strange, heady scents for pleasure and relaxation.

Tallman Close separated two rows of somewhat crooked houses build from shale and burl-wood. A gnarly narco-tree stood next to the chairs leading up to the door with a sign saying »Righteous Respite«.


End file.
